Early Careers Network App

Take control of your future.

Client: Springpod
Platform: iOS
Duration: One month
Year: 2020

Can I just say, that this is the sexiest audience engagement solution for live events. Simon, you’re one of the most talented Product Designers I know. Big kudos to someone who puts so much love and passion into their work.

Carsten Pleiser

CEO at The Event Tech Tribe

The Problem

Springpod is an early careers network for students to explore career paths through apprenticeships and internships. Springpod connects students with leading employers and helps students to build their career network.

Springpod’s competition is typically dull looking government funded schemes with plenty of bureaucracy. I was tasked with solving the problem of encouraging students to connect with potential employers, and use the Springpod system to facilitate apprenticeships.

The Team and Our Tools

I worked as the sole, lead designer on the project, with the idea of handing off to a full-time designer in the future. I was tasked with fully scoping and spec’ing the problem for the development team to work from.

The Discovery Phase

I recognised that we were targeting a generation used to Instagram and Snapchat, so to get their buy in we had to make their career choices more accessible and fun.

Whilst the main target audience for this app were year 12 and 13 students (where there is government funding available to help with apprenticeships and internships), I also looked at making the app accessible to younger students.

Overcoming the Problem

I mapped out the personas for each school year, what they would want to achieve, what apps they would typically use, and any potential frustrations. Using these personas, I scoped the user interface to evolve as the student progresses through school – first being more illustrative and helping students to identify their interests and potential career paths, and showing them what subjects they would have to take to get there. To then start to open up communication channels with employers in those fields as they get older, and the UI becomes cleaner and more professional, taking reference from LinkedIn amongst other applications.

Being an iOS only app allowed me to use a lot of Apple’s native design patterns and components, which made the app a lot lighter, as well as being instinctively more intuitive.

The Final Outcome

The app is now live on the Apple App Store, and is being used by more than 80,000 students across the UK.